Nature Appoints its First Female Editor

Not sure if anyone can say with certainty that there had been a glass ceiling at Nature. If there was, it has finally cracked open. The journal has announced that Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of Nature Communications, has been named the new editor-in-chief of Nature. Dr Skipper will be only the eighth editor-in-chief in the journal’s 149-year history and the first to come from a life sciences background. Dr. Skipper, who will also become the first female editor-in-chief of the journal, will succeed Sir Philip Campbell, Ph.D., who is moving to the newly created role of editor-in-chief of Springer Nature on July 1.

Dr. Skipper has spent over 15 years working for Nature, first joining in 2001. She has held a range of roles as her responsibilities: chief editor of Nature Reviews Genetics; associate publisher, Nature Life Sciences; senior editor and team leader, Nature; and as executive editor of the Nature Partner Journals. After a brief sojourn at Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences as director of scientific communications and publishing, she rejoined the company in 2017 as editor-in-chief, Nature Communications.

“It is a tremendous honor and a privilege to have been entrusted with the leadership of Nature. It is especially exciting to be taking on this role at a time when the way science is done and disseminated is evolving,” said Dr. Skipper. “I look forward to continuing Nature’s leadership in publishing the most interesting and ground-breaking discoveries, and providing a voice on important issues such as promoting transparency and diversity in science.”

“I’m delighted that for the first time a woman will be taking the helm at Nature—and equally delighted that our extensive search resulted in an appointment within the Nature Research family,” said Dean Sanderson, managing director, Nature Research. “With her wealth of experience and commitment to excellence, Magdalena is ideally placed to guide Nature and the Nature journals into the future.”

Dr. Skipper received a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Cambridge and conducted research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, after which she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. At Nature, she helped develop the ENCODE Explorer and Epigenome Roadmap projects.